Caesura
by That's LEON
Summary: All of London would collectively release their breath in relief as he held his own in anticipation. Blackwood/Coward.


The guards were mere pawns, Coward knew, and he was to do nothing to defend them. If anything, they were there for the very purpose of defending _him_. After all, he was the one who needed both a cue and a distraction to make his escape a quick and quiet matter. He was operating under strict orders to vanish at the first sign of commotion. It was crucial to avoid acquiring any signs of a scuffle, and to go unidentified at all costs. He was needed here, now, to create the impression of legitimacy at the scene, but it was vital that his personal involvement be overlooked; he would be behind enemy lines in his upcoming work, farther than he had been until now. Even he didn't know exactly what would happen, but he knew he stood at the brink of a pause; all of London would collectively release their breath in relief as he held his own in anticipation, waiting for the resumption that few others (if anyone) would see coming. He suspected, although he was never so vain as to assume, that he alone was privy to so much of Blackwood's plan.

After all, Coward had been involved with it from the very beginning.

"You will compromise me," Blackwood had told him, the night he'd sworn his loyalty. That had been his first order. Issued under the flicker of candlelight as their blood smeared together between their clasped hands, those simple words had set everything in motion. It had been barely anything at first, touches of concern expressed to Sir Thomas, and later on, a false report that Blackwood had approached him with bribes for his aid. He told them of the dangerous implications of Blackwood's offers, and once rumor had its turn, he fell metaphorically gasping at the feet of men he loathed with fabrications of covert rituals and dead girls. _He's a mad man_, he had told them more than once, his voice urgent and terrified, and Blackwood had smiled—_smiled_—at him as he'd recounted his theatrics in private. He had cultivated fear within the higher ranks of the Order, both putting himself in their good graces and putting Blackwood on a pedestal of horror. It had worked wonderfully.

Blackwood, an ill omen since birth, and Coward, an upstanding young gentleman...no one thought to question it. The lies were transparent, elementary and effortless, but the others saw nothing. Blackwood was a tremendous magician; he blinded men by showing them exactly what they wanted to see. The Order had become frantic to stop a man who, in practice, was doing absolutely nothing.

"All in good time," Blackwood had often murmured, when Coward asked him questions at quiet moments, hoping to catch him in a generous mood.

And in good time, the real murders began. Coward had been present at each of them. He watched the phantom of their order become the devil of London, watched the papers rile the fear his lord so cherished. And then came this. The final act before their interlude.

Blackwood hadn't been obligated to explain a thing to him; he had no obligations to the younger man at all. He could tell Coward to deceive, to kill, even to take his own life, and he would obey without question. Telling him to leave on cue was laughably simple. Blackwood could have told him to run, told him to hide, could have told him nothing more than to remember his place tonight. He could have told him anything but what he did.

"Trust me."

He had breathed those words before the ritual began, their bodies nearly flush against each other's, his lips a hair's breadth from Coward's ear. It had been such a strange thing to say, so entirely unnecessary; Blackwood did not need his trust, only his word. Irrelevant though it was, however, he _did_ have it, as tightly within his grasp as he held the younger man's loyalty. And he knew that.

Strange, that he should choose those words. But Coward didn't question him, because when it was Blackwood, there was nothing to question. When the first guard hit the ground, he spared a glance for the cloaked figure looming over the writhing, drugged girl. If he had never truly believed in anything before, had never trusted even in the omnipotence of immortal gods, he had found his capacity for unwavering faith here. In _him_.

Coward retreated into the shadows.

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**A/N:** I had decided quite firmly NOT to put any of my SH fics on FFnet, but. Well. FFnet is lacking, especially in B/C, so I have to do what I can! XD

I'm toying a lot with characterizations right now, so these two will be inconsistent for a while.


End file.
